how i am similar to a tur-duck-en

Matthew 10:29-31

"Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows."

I have spent my life pretending to be an extrovert. 

How does one pretend to be an extrovert, you ask? 

Quite simply. You act like you aren't afraid to be who you are. Which in my case, is just a tad bit ironic, because in acting like I wasn't afraid to be who I was, I have been hiding who I am. (Personality-ception...)

I sometimes find myself behaving like the life of the party - not that I actually go to parties, I meant that completely metaphorically ('aint nobody got time for that) - but at the same time being utterly unsure if my behavior is the right thing to do. If I'm being good enough for them (the royal them) to like me. To respect me. It's an unsettling realization. 

In a class I took about the constructed self, we talked a lot about how there are theories that see the world as a stage, and ourselves as all of the players. I could really see that applying to my life. Not in that I see the world as a type of stage, but that I see my actions as staged - as if I'm following a set of instructions someone wrote on how to be a stereotypical funny, attractive, interesting, intelligent person. Someone who is good enough. 

I have been spending a lot of my time creating a facade to cover up my insecurities, which date back to when my age was in the single digits. I had a head-start in the insecurity department, let me tell you. Not only was I a rather chubby child, but I was also pretty nerdy, which doesn't earn you many points in an elementary school classroom. From the time I was really young I learned that the things that made me different weren't things to flaunt, so I covered those things with what I thought people would like, and I continued like that for a long time. 

I never crossed any lines that I thought I shouldn't - like I never did drugs or got involved with anything truly harmful to myself, but I definitely put myself in situations that I shouldn't have and those aren't situations that I'm proud of. And the worst part? Those situations were all a product of me trying to make people like me. Because behind the loud, funny, outspoken person that I showed people, was a soft interior. Kind of like a tootsie pop, or a perfectly baked brownie (can you guess what I'm craving? It starts with a "c" and ends in "hocolate"...) I was fragile enough on the inside that I thought I needed to make a shell to protect myself. I stuck my introverted-ness inside an extrovert, kind of like a tur-duck-en is a chicken in a duck in a turkey. If you don't look closely enough, you might think that thing was a regular hunk of poultry, but you would be wrong in that assumption. Completely wrong. I have never had a tur-duck-en, but I can guess that they are nothing at all like your run-of-the-mill bird on the dinner table. 

So in short, I am not a regular piece of poultry. I am a complicated one, especially since I don't quite know how to take the duck and chicken out of the turkey without cutting into it first. And that sounds pretty complicated in itself. But on the other hand, so is continuing the way I'm going right now. See, the biggest problem with being an introvert hiding in an extrovert, is that when I find people who understand where I am coming from with my feelings and my thoughts, then I latch on like a leech and I gush all of the feels - to the point that I think I am probably a little scary at times. My fiance was one of those people, and I often-times wonder how I managed to avoid driving him off when I first met him. I was quite the little over-sharer, because he understood. I could relate to him, and him to me. That's why we worked so well on a larger scale, and that's why we're here now. 

Because of my fiance, and the wonderful people who I am surrounded by, I am slowly learning that God made me the way He did for a reason, and that the reason may be something I figure out someday, or it may not be. But that's okay too. Because I have somewhat separated myself from scenarios where I feel the need to hide my true colors in a box - I can take more steps back and have been learning how to be who I am effectively, without over-sharing, and being unendingly awkward. 

I can only hope that someday, somehow, I will be able to separate the inside from the outside so that people can see who I really am. That nerdy, chubby 9 year old, who's favorite food was macaroni and cheese... (some things never change...)

Me, in all of my nerdiness. :) 

a short story about how a co-worker changed my life - enjoy.

i'm in the mood for story time, so here you go.

From about age 12 to age 18, I was one of those people that others rarely actually wanted to spend time around. not because i was particularly weird, (i was, but that didn't seem to be their reason...) or because i was rude, or anything like that at all. 

for the longest time, i couldn't figure out what the problem was, and i let it kind of eat at me. of course i acted like it didn't bother me at all that i didn't really have friends, per se, i more had acquaintances at school. people who were fine spending time with me when i was there, and when there were school related activities, but who wouldn't dare be seen out in public with me outside of that school-related realm. i acted like it was completely fine, but it definitely bothered me. 

and it bothered me up until about a week ago. and then i was at work, and i made a realization. 

i used to take myself too seriously. 

there, i said it. i did. that was the difference between me, and pretty much everyone else that i knew from the start of high school to graduation. and not only did i take myself too seriously, i took everything too seriously! not to say that it's bad to sometimes be serious about things, like getting a job, or starting a business - its definitely okay to be serious about those things. the problem comes in when you are serious about everything, to the point that you become dramatic. 

i was definitely to that point. 

because i took things so seriously, if something went wrong it was a serious matter instead of being something that i could a) laugh off, or b) easily remedy and go on with life. i mean, if i were to go back in time as the person that i am now, i wouldn't want to spend time with me either! i would probably want nothing to do with myself. 

i have a particular co-worker to credit with this realization, but she will likely never read this. but if she does, she will know who she is. 

since high school, i have learned that nothing is that big, including myself. maybe nuclear war-fare. you can't joke about that... its some serious stuff... but anyway - nothing is so big that you can't go forward. you can argue with me all you want, but that is what i have come to realize. if you take yourself so seriously that you can't function as a human being who makes mistakes and learns from them in a productive way then you should probably take a step back and think about whether you would like to continue the way that you're headed now. you may not notice it, but there are probably things going on around you because of your behavior that you don't want to continue. 

so if my new puppy pees on the floor, i clean it up. that's the end of it. if i'm late to work because i was writing a blog post, i'll apologize and make sure i'm on time the next day - but i'm done with all of the dwelling, and the oh-so-serious nature of life getting me bogged down in piles and piles and piles of feelings and reactions and stresses that really don't matter much in the grand scheme of things. 

i will, of course, sometimes catch myself in those thoughts, thinking those stressful things, but then i remember that it will all be okay, if i just take a freaking chill pill and figure out the most reasonable solution. 

i think the most important part of this is that when i learned that the fate of the universe did NOT, in fact, rest on my shoulders (shocking, right?) i learned that i can actually be funny. i have a sense of humor! who knew... 

the end.

limitations

"I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength."

Philippians 4:13

*For the sake of anonymity for those who I'm going to talk about here, I'm not going to name any names, and I'm not going to give any relationships that aren't necessary to the main point of the story, because that could potentially be hurtful and being hurtful isn't the point.*

A few days ago on a family trip I was talking to someone with whom I am not terribly well acquainted. This person did though, know about my disability, because everyone does. I have NO problem talking about it in an informative and open way, because it's a big part of me and I understand that. Anyway - we were sitting and talking, and this person asked me what I plan on doing after I graduate. There are many things that I could have said. I could have told them that I was going to go to grad school and get my masters, or my doctorate, or go directly into research before pursuing a graduate degree. I could have told them about how I intend to go into teaching, because I have been most profoundly influenced by my professors and I want to be able to influence young people in that same way. Buuuuuuuut that's not what I said. I said the one thing that I DO know for CERTAIN - when I graduate, I want to be a mom. I want to have kids. I have wanted that since I was about 7 years of age, back when I couldn't tell people those things because they would have thought that I was crazy. 7 year olds want to be astronauts and super models, not moms. So I told this person that I wanted to be a mom, because that has been my dream. 

Normally when I tell people this they awkwardly embrace my surprising response. 

Not this person. 

This person said, "Are you sure that's a good idea?" 

And I said, "Excuse me?" 

And with quite the attitude they said, "Your disease - it's hereditary, isn't it?" 

I was shocked. I responded with, "Well there is a 50/50 chance that it will be passed on." And that was the end of that. (BOY do I feel better putting this in writing...)

It also happened to be pretty much the last time that I voluntarily spoke with this person, because anyone who could be that presumptuous was not someone I wanted to speak with freely. 

When I was a child, my mom told me that if I couldn't say something nice, I shouldn't say anything at all. I'm sure a lot of people have been told that at one point in time by a parent or guardian or just an adult. If I was speaking with someone I had barely just met, I would never dare to make the judgements that were made that day, and I would certainly have never stated them the way that the person I was talking to did. They were blunt beyond belief - but one can be blunt without being rude. There is a difference. 

What I really learned from this experience is that the easiest way to bother me is to remind me that I'm disabled. It's not like I forget. Honestly. I'm constantly reminded that I'm different, without people telling me. So the easiest way to get to me, and really fire me up, is to act as if you know what is going on in my life. To act like you know what is best for me. I'm the one in this body, with the limitations that I have been given, and therefore I am the one with the job of sharing what those limitations are. If I don't tell you, you don't know. 

It's the same way with the issue of walking. My mom and I now have this unmentioned understanding (Well... I guess it's mentioned now...) that she doesn't ask me how I'm feeling. She will ask me if I want to do a particular activity, and depending upon my response, she knows how I'm doing. If she asks if I want to go hiking, she lets me pick the trail. I pick whether we walk one mile, or two, or five. She doesn't just PICK the shortest trail because I sometimes don't walk so well. That's the magic of my mom - she lets me make my own limits, and she lets me make those choices and own my disability, as opposed to making it own me instead. 

The moral of this story is this - do not limit other individuals because you think you are doing what is best for them. You have the best intentions, I know. But everyone has insecurities, and it's a shame when those insecurities are used to hold people back against their will. This is especially true (in my opinion) when it comes to people who are similar to myself. So next time, before you try to be sensitive to someone's situation, consider whether you are helping or hurting with that attention that you are paying them. Are you limiting their choices, or are you empowering them to show you what they need - to learn things about themselves that they didn't know? To take ownership of their situation? 

I know that when I am a mother, because someday I will be, if my children inherit my condition there will be a point probably shortly before they are the age that I am now, when I will have to let them learn for themselves what they can and cannot handle. When they learn that, and learn to effectively communicate it to others, I will know that I have been successful. 

Me, Justin, and my sister Megan starting the Hope Furnace trail at Lake Hope State Park. It's a 3.8 Mile trail, and I walked it with them and my mother that day.  Just sayin'.

just a little learning

You want to know what I used to hate? I used to hate when people would tell me that parts of their college experience grew them as a person. 

I didn't really know why I disliked it - it was more like the simple fact that a lot of the people who told me those things I knew for a fact spent a good deal of their time in college partying, and I didn't want to accept that their behaviors may, or may not have actually grown them as a person. 

Well anyway, I just had this really weird moment where I realized, I've grown a lot as a person. I don't know whether that is something that people regularly actively think about, but I've been working on a project with Justin that I will soon be sharing here, and it's definitely taught me a lot about my own nature.

I like to control things. That's something I have to work to not let get in my way, and every one else's. Sometimes, the most beautiful things happen when you let go of that control and just let stuff happen. 

The interaction that I got all of this from is a lot less profound than the explanation I just gave, but it's true. Sometimes you just have to let things go, and see what happens. Maybe you'll be surprised. I was. 

dear Hollister models - you owe me dinner.

I was working yesterday at the mall, and I noticed something. 

It was something that I had seen a great number of times, but this time it really bothered me. 

I was looking out towards the escalator, and I saw this young girl - she couldn't have been older than maybe five, coming down the escalator holding a woman's hand. She looked really excited, with her brown ponytail bobbing up and down as she talked with the woman I'm going to assume was her mother. 

She was in white capri pants and had on a blue and black plaid shirt that was tied up in the front so that you could see just a little of her blue undershirt, and you could see from a distance just a hint of sparkling lipgloss on her smiling lips. 

This girl was holding a Hollister accessory bag. The bag had on one side a nearly naked, rather muscular twenty something man, and on the other, a quite seductive (also scantily clad) woman of around the same age. the only reason you could tell the man was wearing anything at all was because you could see the top maaaybe an inch of what I'm assuming were jeans. The woman was wearing a chiffon shirt, with one button done, and a bandeau. For those of you who don't know, a bandeau is basically the socially acceptable way to wear your bra in public as the main covering for the upper portion of your body and still maintain some level of social acceptance. She wasn't even in one of their beach pictures, so I don't know what they were really going for there. 

The bag probably held some headbands or maybe a bracelet that she had seen walking through the store with her mother, and just couldn't live without. 

Like I said, I see that kind of thing every day, and normally I just thing "awww she's so cute" and that's the end of that. But when I saw this girl and the bag she was holding, I was really disgusted. 

I mean REALLY disgusted. 

Not because of her appearance, but because that bag was in her hands. 

I don't have anything against Hollister, or that girl's mother, but if I were the mother of a five-year-old girl, I certainly wouldn't want my child to be exposed to that kind of sexual message at that age. That kind of a message about what people should look like. That kind of message about how to behave. 

When I was younger, I LONGED to look like the women in Victoria's Secret ads, and Hollister ads, and Abercrombie Ads. 

I really did. Maybe that says something about my self-esteem, or my self-confidence, but regardless I thought I was falling short of the standard that I felt I had no choice but to meet. They were everywhere - my friends wore their clothes (things we couldn't really afford at the time, though I didn't understand that) and if I didn't fit into their size "00" box, I wasn't good enough. 

And I have never, ever fit into that. In all likelihood, I never will. I'm not overweight, but I'm not a Hollister model either. I'm all okay with that now, but if I were the mother of a five-year-old girl, I would be doing everything in my power to make sure that she didn't feel the need to conform to that standard like I did. Because it SHOULDN'T be the standard. In my humble opinion, there shouldn't be a standard in the first place - maybe healthy should be the standard - but I don't know, and that's not the point. 

The point is, I saw a five-year-old girl - an innocent person - holding images of our hyper-sexualized culture, and it made me sick. 

It makes me sick that the only way you can avoid seeing images of random, nearly naked people is by never going into public spaces. Which is really, really hard. (And also a lot less fun.)

The worst part for me is that there are some of these pictures that are leaving VERY little to the imagination - one more inch in any direction but up and we're seeing things we never intended to see, and all we wanted was lunch in the food court! 

Maybe it's just me, but if my intention were to see that much of a man, he would be buying me dinner first. 

Probably multiple times. 

if you judged them with only your eyes, chances are you're wrong.

You know what I never posted about? An experience that I had over Christmas break from school. I was working my day job at the mall, and I got off of my shift at about two o'clock I would say, (It's been a while so I don't completely remember the time...) and I had been having a particularly difficult morning on the EDS side of things. 

By the time I got done with my shift I was exhausted and I was limping rather badly because I had somehow managed to injure my left knee. My left side is my bad side, and if I can get through a day without injuring something on that side of myself, it's seriously a miracle. Anyway - I'm limping out to my car, which is parked in handicap parking, because I'm handicapped. 

Lets talk about that for a minute, since I'm ranting. 

I went through the arduous process of acquiring a prescription for a handicap placard from my geneticist because when I started driving I realized that walking from the south-end-of-east-parking-lot was really awful with misaligned hips. I can't tell you the number of times I tried to go to Kroger and had to sit down by the time I got to the front of the building. I'm basically an 80 year old woman - but I digress. I went through this almost two-month process because I wanted to make my life slightly less painful. I didn't do it because it would make my life more convenient, or because I wanted to play the system or anything like that. I did it because walking hurts, and no body likes pain. Agreed? Agreed. Moving on. 

So I was parked in handicap parking, with MY state issued placard displayed clearly, hanging from the rear-view mirror. I finally reached my car after limping through the packed mall parking lot, (since it is Christmas season, after all) and I get in, start my engine, and begin to pull out of the space. 

I see movement to my right. 

There is a woman, looks like she's in her late 40s early 50s, standing next to my passenger side window. She knocks on it. I open it. I look at her questioningly and ask if I can help her, not thinking anything of it. 

This woman looks at me with all the loving kindness of an upset crocodile and practically spits "You don't look very disabled - you take Mommy's car today so you wouldn't have to walk?" 

I can only imagine what my face looked like after she said that. I was half pulled out of my parking space, blocking traffic, and this woman is waiting for my response. I was so upset that I burst into tears and said, "This is MY placard ma'am, from MY doctors - I have a joint disorder that causes serious pain. You don't have to be OLD to be disabled - if that's what you mean. Maybe you should think about other people's situations before you judge them - If I could have walked from the edge of this parking lot, I would have. But I can't." She shook her head as if she didn't believe me, and I continued to sob as I rolled up my window and finished vacating the parking space so that whoever she was saving it for could park. 

Not all young people are self absorbed. Not all young people have no respect for authority. Not all young people think they can take advantage of systems that are there for people who need them. 

Not all old people are disabled. 

Not all people with disabilities are old. 

Some of them are 5'4", 18 year old brunettes who can't believe that the handicap space is so far from the employee entrance. 

If I had been 50, would anything have been said? 60? Maybe even 45? 

What about gray hair? Would that have done it? If I had been wearing a brown scarf instead of the hot pink one my co-worker had just given me? Something more mature? Older? Would that have made me look "disabled"? 

Do 30 year old men with cardiac problems walk with limps? Do they wear joint braces? Can you see their disability? No, you can't. 

Would that woman have said anything to a 30 year old man, using HIS handicap placard? Probably not. Maybe he would have been old enough to be disabled, old enough to warrant respect. 

Clearly my hair wasn't gray enough, my face not wrinkled enough, and my back not hunched enough. That experience has obviously effected me quite a bit, because I'm still talking about it three months later. Three months later that interaction is still etched into my mind, and I can't seem to get rid of it, because it taught me something about myself, and it taught me something about people. 

I give those around me the benefit of the doubt. All the time. I think that I would want them to give it to me as well - I give people respect initially, because they have done nothing to me that warrants my behavior being anything but kind. 

Most people don't give those around them the benefit of the doubt. People are judgmental, to a degree that I didn't think possible. It was severely naive of me, I know, but I didn't realize that everyone is always judging everyone else's motivations. I thought that kind of thing existed in the hallways of high schools where unfortunate kids were forced to spend four years of their lives - I thought the trivial drama stopped when you graduated. Boy was I wrong. Not only does it not stop, but it gets worse. It gets worse because after school sometimes your job, your livelihood is relying on the resolution of those petty dramatic moments. Sometimes conflict doesn't happen in parking lots, it happens in cubicles. 

The point is, I was affected much more by the encounter than I would like to admit, and it's been bothering me. Someone who I personally thought would be a very nice lady was very unkind. Someone who she thought was a self absorbed young person was really a young person dealing with pain. Maybe next time she'll think twice about saying something. 



If you've judged someone with only your eyes, you're probably wrong. 

i'm a fish, and we don't climb trees.

"If you judge a fish by it's ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."

I won't get in to whether or not I actually believe that this is something Einstein said, because I don't care. What I care about is that it's true. I don't mean that in the way that most people mean that though. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for being unique and not judging books by their covers and accepting people for who they are and all that jazz, but that's just not specifically what I get out of this quote, so here's your context.

I sometimes complain. Sometimes I'm a really awful person to be around - shocking, I know. But everyone complains sometimes, because everyone has their own burden to carry. Some people are in debt, some people are in a rough relationship - it just so happens that I have a chronic pain disorder. Yay me. That's not the point though. The issue is, just because my complaining about my chronic pain is a different subject than you complaining about not being able to figure out what kind of car you want to buy when you get your tax return does NOT mean that you should lecture me about my kind of complaining because somehow mine is more annoying than yours. 

News flash. 

My complaining is more annoying to you than your complaining is to you because mine has nothing to do with your life. You could likely listen to yourself complain about your car purchasing troubles just as long as I could listen to myself complain about my dislocated ribs, because our own lives are far more interesting to us than the lives of those around us. I'm definitely not saying that's how things should be, it's just the reality. 

Everyone complains - if you don't I seriously envy your ability to let things roll off your shoulders. Really. Pass some of that patience over here. I could use it. But I'm willing to bet that you do complain, because every once and a while, everyone needs to let things out. Stuff builds up in a person and either you let that sit and fester and turn into something much bigger than it is, or you let those little things out when they happen and it makes us all a little easier to deal with in the end. At least that's my judgement of the whole thing, I could be wrong. It happens. 

But the point is, it will do no one in the situation any good to listen to (or give, for that matter) a lecture about how certain people (namely myself) just need to accept that "life is just the way it is" sometimes, and that you just need to "let things happen the way they happen. Pain happens, and you move on," obviously I just need to "Get over it." 

Pain happens?? It just gives me the urge to yell "Run Forest RUN" when people give me that cliché response. It's not just that generally the people saying it have no idea what I'm actually going through, it's mostly that I'm normally expecting a completely different response. When we complain (especially if the "we" here is referring to women) we generally don't want you to fix it. We don't want advice. We want you to say "Well that sucks... I'm sorry." and have that be the end of it. No one asked for a lecture. 

And maybe you didn't ask to hear me talk about how my knees are really killing me because the weather doesn't understand how to calm down, but you know what? I don't care what car you're getting when you get your tax return either. Do you hear me telling you about all the other, more useful things you could be doing with that money? Preaching to you about how many needy kids could be fed with that money? Nope. You don't. Am I thinking about telling you all of those things? Yup. But because that's not what you want to hear, I keep my mouth shut, and make up an imaginary scenario that is close to but not exactly what our actual conversation was about, so that I can put it on the internet and make myself feel a little better. (Hence perpetuating the cycle of complaints...)

If maybe we could all just judge the fish by their ability to swim and the birds by their ability to fly, then we would all be a little better off. Maybe we should stop holding ourselves to a lower standard than we hold those around us. Don't you think it might be a little bit easier for all of us if we gave people the benefit of the doubt? If we let people complain every once and a while? Loosened up? Said "Man, that sucks... I'm sorry," and just let people do what they need to do, even if it's a little bit annoying for all of about two minutes of your time? Can't you maybe, just maybe, give two minutes to help someone else feel just a little bit better about something they're going through? I'll try to do it for you too - promise.  

I'm a fish. I can't climb trees. I'm okay with that. 

I'm not asking you to be okay with it, I'm just asking you to respect that my swimming is just as relevant a mode of transportation as your climbing. Different does not equal lesser. 

Plus I'd probably dislocate something if I tried to climb trees anyway.